In Kaminembe, a rural community in Chisamba District, Central Province, an important shift is taking place in the way people think about development and their own role in making it happen. Instead of looking only at what the community lacks or waiting for resources to arrive from elsewhere, residents are increasingly recognising that development can also begin with what already exists among them: their relationships, their ideas, their ability to organise, the little that individual households can contribute and, perhaps most importantly, their willingness to bring those different resources together around something that matters to everyone.
This shift has been nurtured through Kaminembe’s Kamwemishi Community Foundation, one of the community foundations supported by the Zambian Governance Foundation (ZGF) as part of its efforts to strengthen locally rooted structures through which communities can identify their own priorities, mobilise resources and participate more meaningfully in decisions about their development. What is unfolding in Kaminembe is a powerful example of what this model can look like in practice, because the foundation is gradually becoming a platform that people recognise as their own and increasingly turn to when they want to act collectively.
For ZGF Chief Executive Officer Engwase Mwale, this is at the heart of what community philanthropy is intended to nurture.
“Communities are often introduced into development conversations through what they lack, yet every community has resources within it, whether those resources are money, knowledge, relationships, skills, time, labour or simply people who care deeply about what happens where they live,” she says. “The importance of a community foundation is that it creates a locally rooted structure through which those different resources can be recognised, organised and connected to the priorities that people themselves have identified.”
When everyone has something to give
In 2026, one of the clearest demonstrations of this growing sense of ownership came when Kamwemishi Community Foundation embarked on a fundraising initiative involving 100 households. The idea was that each household would contribute K150 towards community priorities, but the initiative soon encountered a familiar reality: while people wanted to participate, not every household could afford to provide K150 in cash.
Rather than allowing financial circumstances to determine who could participate, the community found another way to make giving inclusive. Those who could not afford the cash contribution were invited to give bags of mealie meal instead, which were later sold and the proceeds added to the money being raised.
Among the contributions was an extraordinary K9,000 from one local philanthropist who chose to invest in what the foundation was trying to achieve. Together with contributions from other residents, Kaminembe was able to mobilise K23,790 from within the community, demonstrating not only the potential of local giving but also what becomes possible when a community creates a mechanism through which small and large contributions can become part of the same collective effort.
For Kamwemishi Community Foundation Coordinator Rostern Mwembela, the experience revealed an important change in the way community members understand their own contribution to development.
“We realised that if we said everybody must bring K150, there would be people who genuinely wanted to participate but could not afford it, so we had to look at what people actually had,” he explains. “Some could contribute money, others could give mealie meal, and one person was able to contribute K9,000. What was important was that people were able to say, ‘This is ours, and I have also contributed something towards it.’ That feeling of ownership is what makes the difference.”
Turning local giving into visible change
The significance of the K23,790 becomes even clearer when one looks at what the community chose to do with the resources it had mobilised. Rather than raising money without a clear connection to people's everyday lives, the foundation channelled the funds toward practical priorities residents had already identified, including plastering and flooring the clinic the community is constructing and installing doors so the facility could move closer to becoming the kind of community asset residents envisioned.
Part of the resources also went to building two 1X2 toilet facilities at the local school and clinic, turning household contributions into infrastructure that could benefit people far beyond those who had personally participated in the fundraising initiative.
Becoming a mouthpiece for the community
While the fundraising initiative provides a tangible example of Kamwemishi Community Foundation's progress, perhaps the deeper transformation can be seen in how residents increasingly relate to the foundation itself. Community members have begun to regard it as their mouthpiece, a structure through which shared concerns can be discussed, organised and carried beyond the community to institutions with the mandate and resources to respond.
That growing representative role is particularly visible in the community's aspirations for education. Kaminembe currently has a primary school, but residents would like children in the area to have access to secondary education closer to home, and the foundation has consequently applied to the District Education Board Secretary (DEBS) for the school to be upgraded from primary to secondary level. The outcome of that application rests with the relevant education authorities, but the process itself demonstrates that the community foundation is beginning to serve not only as a mechanism for mobilising local resources, but also as a platform through which people can organise around a shared issue and engage institutions collectively.
From individual resources to collective possibility
Alongside these efforts, Kamwemishi Community Foundation has also supported Kantunjila Savings Group, creating another mechanism through which residents can organise their resources and strengthen habits of saving and collective financial action. The 29-member savings group completed two saving cycles through which they saved over K124,000.
Seen together, the fundraising initiative, the clinic, the sanitation facilities, the savings group and the application to upgrade the school tell a story that is much larger than any individual activity. They show a community foundation gradually becoming functional because people are using it, trusting it, investing in it and turning to it when they want to address issues that matter to them, rather than simply regarding it as a structure belonging to an outside organisation.
This is an important distinction for ZGF because the ambition behind strengthening community foundations has never been to suggest that communities should solve every development challenge by themselves. Communities still need responsive public institutions, civil society organisations, businesses, philanthropists and other partners capable of bringing resources, technical expertise and opportunities that may not exist locally. The difference is that a community with its own organised structure can participate in those partnerships with greater agency, bringing not only its needs but also its knowledge, resources, priorities and experience to the table.
It starts with what we have
There is something particularly powerful about the decision in Kaminembe to accept a bag of mealie meal from a household that could not afford K150, because within that simple decision lies a much larger understanding of what community philanthropy can mean. The value of that household's contribution was not measured against the K9,000 given by another resident, nor was one person's ability to give more allowed to diminish another person's ability to participate; instead, different forms and levels of giving were brought together because each represented a willingness to invest in something shared.
The results of that collective effort can now be found across the community, but the most important change may be less visible. It can be found in the growing understanding that people can begin with what they have, organise around what matters to them and use their collective strength to reach for resources and opportunities beyond those immediately available within Kaminembe.
For Mwembela, that change has expanded the community's sense of what is possible. “We know that there are many things we still want for Kaminembe and that we cannot achieve all of them using only the resources we have here, but we have also learnt that we do not always have to wait before we begin,” he explains. “We can sit together, identify what matters to us, contribute what we have and start doing something, and when we approach government or another partner, we are able to show that the community itself is committed and has already taken responsibility for moving its priorities forward.”
Perhaps this is where the story of Kamwemishi Community Foundation becomes most inspiring. Deeper value lies in the growing belief that development can begin from within a community without ending there, allowing local resources to become a foundation upon which stronger partnerships, greater advocacy and more ambitious possibilities can be built.
If you would like to learn more about Kamwemishi Community Foundation, feel free to reach out via info@zgf.org.zm
